Chapter 2
Gio
Istop where she leaves me. Following would mean conceding ground, and fuck that.
Zoe doesn’t hesitate. Her step stays steady, clean. She doesn’t check behind her. She shifts her tote higher on her shoulder—smooth, automatic—and keeps moving like the hallway adjusted itself around her instead of the other way around. Like my presence was information she processed and set aside.
That lands wrong. Sharp.
I track her anyway—I can’t help it. Shoulder-length caramel hair swings once before she tucks it back, bangs already falling into place like they were engineered to piss me off.
Enough length to wrap around my fist. Thigh-high boots.
Again. Black suede this time, paired with a skirt that dares people to underestimate how fast she can move in it.
I want to fuck her against that wall and ruin that perfect mouth.
Heat bites under my skin immediately. Hard and immediate.
She doesn’t retreat. She recalibrates. Adjusts her pace, her posture, the line of her shoulders—clean, precise, complete. Her presence carries no softness, no excess. And she doesn’t look back because she already knows exactly where I am.
That’s the part that sticks.
Pure attraction would be easier to shelve. This is sharper—recognition without permission, confidence without apology—and it irritates the hell out of me that she wears it like it costs her nothing.
I stay where I am. Let the space she carved out sit there between us, loud and deliberate. The realization lands a beat late: she walked away like someone who never expected pursuit in the first place.
The space she leaves behind presses inward instead of emptying.
I take two steps before I realize I moved at all, then stop again, teeth locking hard enough to feel it in my jaw. The hallway keeps flowing—noise, bodies, momentum—but none of it touches the pocket she burned into existence. That friction stays live, waiting.
I tell myself it’s timing. Proximity. Leftover adrenaline—ice still in my lungs, metal still in my blood. I repeat it until it almost settles.
Almost.
The problem is the precision of her exit. Distance wasn’t required to claim control. A reaction wasn’t required to confirm impact. She clocked me, adjusted, and left like the equation was already closed.
I don’t want someone who reads me that cleanly. I don’t want someone who operates without needing anything from me.
“Rossi?”
The voice cuts in from my left, casual, expecting engagement. I don’t turn. The strap of my gear bag digs into my shoulder, anchoring me in place by choice.
“Yeah?” The word lands flat.
“You heading to the rink?”
“In a minute.”
“You good?”
I breathe out through my nose, slow. “Define good.”
A pause. Then a shrug I hear more than see.
“See you there.”
Footsteps fade. The hallway absorbs him without resistance.
I stay put, irritation buzzing under my skin, sharp and persistent. Fuck. I roll my shoulders once, like movement might dislodge the disturbance instead of driving it deeper.
She didn’t ask for anything. That’s what keeps scraping. I don’t want someone who refuses to need me. And I don’t like that my system flagged it as something worth tracking.
Someone slides into my path—not a block, a claim. Easy. Practiced. Like he owns the lane I’m standing in.
“Gio.”
He uses my name like it still opens doors. I look up and find Rylan. Same relaxed posture. Same confidence that assumes history still carries weight. He smiles like we’re mid-conversation instead of planted in a crowded corridor I’m already finished with.
“What do you want?” I keep it bare.
He chuckles. “Straight to it. Missed that.”
I shift my weight, grounding. Whatever Zoe left behind sharpens, searching for a target.
“Coach Addison,” he says, like it’s an inside joke. “We should probably talk.”
“We shouldn’t.”
Rylan waves it off. “It got messy. You know how things spiral.”
“I do.”
He leans in slightly, voice dropping like this is a favor. “People screw up. No reason to burn the house down.”
The assumption hangs there—dense and ugly. That I’ll absorb the weight. That I’ll smooth the edges so he doesn’t have to bleed.
“You still have his ear,” he adds. “Thought you could quiet things down.”
Quiet things down.
I let the silence stretch until his smile twitches.
“You want me to talk to Coach Addison for you,” I say. Flat. Exact.
Rylan shrugs. “I’m asking for help. Like before.”
“Coach Addison’s daughter,” I say. My voice stays level. Fact only.
Rylan’s mouth tightens. “That’s not—”
“You ran your mouth about her in front of Declan,” I cut in. “Ignored the warning. Escalated. Kept going.”
Hallway noise swells—laughter, footsteps—but the words stay where they land.
“I didn’t say anything that—”
“You said enough,” I reply. “Enough to shut you down. Enough to end your season.”
His jaw flexes. He glances past me, checking who’s close, then back.
“It got twisted,” he says. “Declan took it personal. Coach blew it up.”
“No,” I say. “You crossed the line.”
He scoffs. “It was talk.”
“It was about the coach’s daughter,” I say. “That’s the line. Period.”
Rylan shifts, irritation cracking through now that the script failed.
“That’s why I’m here.”
There it is, then.
“I need you to talk to Coach Addison,” he says. “Tell him it won’t happen again. Tell him I understand now. I just need another shot.”
He spreads his hands, frustration flashing.
“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you to help.”
The request lands heavy and foul.
Zoe wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t shrink it. Wouldn’t sand it down. She’d name it and stand there while it burned.
I look at Rylan.
“You’re done,” I say. “Here. Period.”
His face hardens. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
The pressure tightens instead of lifting.
I start walking again, jaw locked, boots scuffing concrete harder than necessary.
“This is fucking unreal,” I mutter.
Rylan drifts back into the crowd, already pretending this didn’t matter. Like he didn’t just drop a live wire into the middle of my season.
Undefeated. Everyone says it like it’s armor. Like it blocks attention instead of attracting it. Scouts hunt undefeated teams. Coaches dissect every frame. Media circles, bored and starving.
Frozen Four is months out. Months. Everything between now and then is glass.
I pull my phone from my pocket, thumb hovering before I lock the screen again. Any move right now creates noise. Noise cuts both ways.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
Zoe cuts across my thoughts without permission—her walk, her posture, the way she moved past me earlier without asking for a goddamn thing. She understands pressure because she lives inside it. That’s what makes her dangerous. To herself. And maybe to me.
I shove the thought down. Distraction gets punished. This season doesn’t tolerate mistakes. It doesn’t tolerate misplaced loyalty. And Rylan knows it.
“Hey,” Rylan calls over his shoulder.
I stop again. Slow.
“What.”
The word lands as warning.
He turns, walking backward a step like we’re still operating on old terms.
“No hard feelings,” he says, smiling. “I respect the boundary.”
“Good,” I snap. “You crossed it.”
He lifts his hands. “Relax. I told you—I understand.”
I don’t buy it.
“You were always the good one, Gio,” he adds, voice easy, warm. “That’s why people listen to you.”
There it is.
The words slide under my ribs, slick and intentional. He’s setting the frame. Responsibility. The cleaner. The guy who fixes things so others don’t have to.
“Don’t,” I warn.
He smiles wider. “Just saying. See you around.”
He turns, then pauses, glancing back with a smile that carries calculation.
“Guess I’ll find another way to get noticed.”
He walks off like he ended this exactly where he wanted. Like he didn’t just light a fuse and leave it at my feet.
That’s what tightens my fists. Not anger. Certainty.
I stand there longer than I should.
This isn’t finished. Rylan didn’t come for forgiveness. He came to find the wall. To confirm I wouldn’t help. To log the answer and adjust.
He never pushes straight on. He leaks sideways—through people, through timing, through proximity. And now he knows where to press.
“Fuck,” I say again, quieter.
I move before I can stall myself, heading for the rink, stride locking into place as it always does when the ground starts to shift beneath me.